Well, Scientific American, appears in the basket at my dentist's office, along with Sport's Illustrated, Popular Mechanics, American Spectator, Cosmopolitan, People, and 'US'.

Are you stating a trip to the dentist's office qualifies you to rate the merit of scientific publications.

Quote:

I would suggest you address the writer of the article in question.

Interesting - you claim a publication has merit yet are unwilling to defend in layman's terms the merit of the articles contained therein.

Or are you like the others of your persuasion on this forum, unable to do little beyond teleprompter messaging & not so wise remarks?

12-01-2008, 06:17 PM

John Schmidt

Quote:

Originally Posted by Marvin S

Are you stating a trip to the dentist's office qualifies you to rate the merit of scientific publications.

Interesting - you claim a publication has merit yet are unwilling to defend in layman's terms the merit of the articles contained therein.

Scientific American is a popular press magazine about science and engineering written in a way to appeal to a more mainstream audience. Is there merit in such a publication? Of course there is. Anything that improves the science literacy of the general public is a good thing. Do other scientists and engineers enjoy reading it; they most certainly do. And by and large, the articles are likely written by accomplished scientists.

But let's not confuse a popular press magazine from actual scientific journals. You know the ones that publish articles with an abstract, introduction, methods, data, discussion and a conclusion and have been peer reviewed. Those types of articles are not found in Scientific American. Any scientist who is interested in exploring a topic is not going to look at the articles found in Scientific American as the definitive source of knowledge. They will likely turn to an internet bulletin board about retrievers and ask for opinions about a subject matter and avoid the tedious work of spending lots of quality time in a library reading multiple journal articles.

John Schmidt

12-01-2008, 07:07 PM

Marvin S

Quote:

Originally Posted by John Schmidt

Scientific American is a popular press magazine about science and engineering written in a way to appeal to a more mainstream audience. Is there merit in such a publication? Of course there is. Anything that improves the science literacy of the general public is a good thing. Do other scientists and engineers enjoy reading it; they most certainly do. And by and large, the articles are likely written by accomplished scientists.

But let's not confuse a popular press magazine from actual scientific journals. You know the ones that publish articles with an abstract, introduction, methods, data, discussion and a conclusion and have been peer reviewed. Those types of articles are not found in Scientific American. Any scientist who is interested in exploring a topic is not going to look at the articles found in Scientific American as the definitive source of knowledge. They will likely turn to an internet bulletin board about retrievers and ask for opinions about a subject matter and avoid the tedious work of spending lots of quality time in a library reading multiple journal articles.

John Schmidt

I have long had the opinion that anything done by engineers & scientists that is not capable of being understood by a reasonably intelligent person is wasted effort.

Interestingly, the articles in Scientific American generally have their sources if one is interested in pursuing their desire for knowledge further.

12-01-2008, 09:10 PM

JDogger

[quote=Marvin S;365878]Are you stating a trip to the dentist's office qualifies you to rate the merit of scientific publications.

No, just stating that I have seen the magazine there.

Interesting - you claim a publication has merit yet are unwilling to defend in layman's terms the merit of the articles contained therein.

I googled sciencemag, and took a quick look and determined that the site was by subscription, or pay per article, and posted the link for you and others of your persuasion, that you might have another source, other than those garnered by adding the additional parameter of 'hoax'.

JD

12-02-2008, 07:56 AM

Joe S.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Marvin S

Please state your qualifications to rate the merit of scientific publications & the articles contained therein.

Just out of interests sake, Marv:

Please state your qualifications to rate the merit of scientific publications & the articles contained therein.

Scientific Regards,

Joe S.

12-02-2008, 08:57 AM

dr_dog_guy

I do have to say that Mr. Schmidt did a good job of capturing the difference. Scientific American is a wonderful magazine and provides import scientific information with papers written for the intelligent layperson. Peer-reviewed scientific journals written for the expert are intended for a far different audience (and a heck of a lot harder to read).

Science does have an excellent News and Comment section at the front of each issue that covers relevant news and overviews of current advances, written (like Scientific American) for the intelligent layperson, but the technical papers/reports of research are written at a whole different level. I know I can't follow the physics in those papers specific to physics, but I sure love to try.

12-02-2008, 09:04 AM

Marvin S

Quote:

Originally Posted by Joe S.

Just out of interests sake, Marv:

Please state your qualifications to rate the merit of scientific publications & the articles contained therein.